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This chapter outlines the intellectual and political agenda behind establishing the monthly Chinese Cinema in 1956. The journal followed the Hundred Flowers campaign and promoted open discussion on the shortcomings of current film policy. In particular, it challenged the dogma of art for workers, peasants, and soldiers, emphasizing instead the importance of debate. The chapter argues that the episode constituted a founding moment for Chinese cinephilia, in the sense of informed discourse rooted in a community committed to film interpretation. Understanding early PRC film culture in terms of cinephilia calls for rethinking the connection between art and politics under Mao.

Yomi Braester is Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. His publications include Witness against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China (Stanford UP, 2003), Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract (Duke UP, 2010), and Cinema at the City’s Edge: Film and Urban Networks in East Asia (co-edited with James Tweedie; Hong Kong University Press, 2010).

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